AdAge Notes Palm/Sprint’s Marketing Challenge

A story posted today by Rita Chang at AdAge.com, talked about the marketing challenges the Palm Pre will face when it launches “sometime in mid-May.”

And every week that passes without launch, timing becomes a bigger one.

The story reinforces the concerns many of us have.  It quoted telecom-marketing consultant Mitch Gooze, who said, “Sprint is in desperate need of a hit. It's more important to Sprint than Palm that the Pre comes out quickly."

It also quoted Brad Akyuz, an analyst with Current Analysis, "They have to do whatever it takes to ship in early May so it can take the spotlight."  He also said the launch message should focus on the phone's innovations. “Palm should be the one setting the benchmark here and have others try to compete.”

Posted at the online companion of Advertising Age, a publication focused on delivering news, analysis and data on marketing and media, there were a few paragraphs addressing marketing spend.

“Verizon Wireless spent $100 million to roll out the Blackberry Storm, and just the media buy for Apple's first iPhone launch likely came to at least $150 million, according to one ad executive.”

Yeah, the pressure is on.  We’ve known that for a while.  It is interesting to see how the story is getting picked up outside the normal media channels… even hitting publications targeted to advertising creatives.  More and more the cries of “are we there yet?” can be heard.  That’s a good thing for now… A month from now, maybe not.

Thanks to ankushagarwal for the tip!